Song-Era Bowl Fetches $26.7 Million

A 900-year-old bowl dating back to China’s Song dynasty sold for $26.7 million Wednesday at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong.

The bowl is from the Ru kilns and was used to wash calligraphy brushes. It is one of about 80 such objects known to be in existence, and Sotheby’s has called the washers “among the most sophisticated achievements in Chinese ceramics.”

According to the auctioneer, eight bidders competed for the object, with its final bid more than doubling the high end of its initial estimates.

Comments (2 of 2)

The bidding at Sotheby of a Song’s Chinese brush washing dish fetched over 200 million Hong Kong dollars can’t be said of the value of the dish has been preserved. It is not to say that its price hasn’t been raised many folds of those seventy others in private hands. What is so sad for the abnormally priced dish that the collateral damage it would bring. Most likely its new owner would have it locked for its enormous cash value. The trend of locking up cultural treasures from the public is expanding with the increase of exorbitant disposable income concentrated in the hands of few. The public is being robbed perhaps not only once.

I imagine it would be stored inside a box. The new home for the dish hence would continue perhaps cease from its original humble purpose sitting on the desk generating visual pleasure for viewing as well.

Even the modern use of the dish as a piece of art for viewing and touching would too disappear into that box. All in all, in truth is that the dish vanishes all its worth until the next auction.

There may be risk that the investment can be indefinitely upheld for the new owner if someone actually takes the trouble to recreate one or many of the dishes under the similar manufacturing conditions. After all, the skill of ceramic making is still with us. Fundamentally, one will value any old work at least what its current replicating manufacturing cost would be. Any intangible values would be added on cost.

I hope I will have a chance to possess a similar dish and enjoy in using and viewing it in my daily life but without the need to pay an exorbitant among of money. For what limitation my dish has for its historical antique value, I know I would be still doing justice to the original dish creator in letting the work to live on and enjoyed as intended.